1 88 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINNAEUS 



of the people has made practicable an amended liquor 

 law; that the Government can forego the profit, and 

 the people the lust, of intemperance. There are few 

 public-houses scattered about the country in Sweden, 

 few even in the towns, and Gothenburg is remarkably 

 exempt from them. The village inn is less an ale- 

 house than an hotel ; one can get ale ; but they expect 

 one rather to ask for a jug of milk. Yet truth compels 

 me to mention that in Gothenburg I saw the only case 

 of drunkenness I met with in Sweden. Blessed truth 

 also permits me to add that it was at ten o'clock in the 

 evening of St. John's Day, the summer day of merry- 

 making. Should we in a great English seaport meet 

 only one drunken person late in the evening of a bank 

 holiday ? l Take Portsmouth, for instance, which has 

 nearly the same population 72,000. 



Truth is not a party question. ' You have no 

 business with consequences : you are to tell the truth,' 

 says Dr. Johnson ; and there it is, according to my light. 



This blessed habit of truth-telling makes travelling, 

 and all life, so easy in Sweden. It is the cheapest 

 policy too. The habitual truth and honesty of the 

 Swedes and Norwegians enables them to do without 

 the costly apparatus of repression of fraud, the law-, 

 courts and their official team, and its subdivision for 

 the repression of violence, called police. i An increased 



1 At Malmo on their Whit Monday bank-holiday I saw no one 

 tipsy, and yet I was out looking about me all day at the manners 

 and customs of the people, and even, took a steamboat excursion. 



